Stanley Bard says that getting into the Chelsea is harder than getting into an Ivy League college. He says he does extensive research on each potential resident. And while I’ve no doubt that this is true, it sometimes happens, even at the best of schools, that the Registrar loses your transcript.
A man in his forties was moving into the Hotel. He wore his gray hair cropped short, and was slightly overweight. Seemed respectable enough—in the Chelsea sense, that is: he wasn’t wearing a suit or anything. He had his van parked out by the curb, and in between carrying in boxes, he stopped up at the desk to say hi to the manager, a tall Hispanic man named Harvey.
“I used to live here before, back in the eighties,” our new neighbor said. “Stanley says he doesn’t remember. ”You remember me, don’t you Harvey?”
“Yeah, I remember you,” Harvey said, though he didn’t sound too convincing, and I thought maybe he just said it to make the guy feel better.
“I lived here for almost a year, and Stanley doesn’t even remember me!”
“We get a lot of people passing through here, you know,” Harvey said. “And sometimes it’s hard to keep them all straight.”
“I was worried about that, whether he’d remember me.”
“Well, he let you in anyway, so he must’ve liked you.”
“Back then I was a drug-addled 18-year-old,” the newcomer said. “Partied all night. Totally irresponsible. Never even paid my rent. Maybe I paid it once. Stanley kicked me out himself.”
Harvey didn’t say anything. He looked on impassively.
“But now it’s cool,” the new guy said. “Blank slate, you know. Now it’s all good.”
Ed Hamilton
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